How historical anti-Tutsi ideology continues to shield FDLR - Part I

Imagine a newly liberated Europe, freed from Nazi rule, discovering that Nazi forces had crossed a border, backed by international sponsors actively arming them for a renewed campaign of Jewish extermination. ALSO READ: We are misreading the FDLR threat: It is dangerous incubator of genocide ideology, not just an armed group Such a scenario would be unimaginable in Europe. Rather than arming such forces for another campaign of destruction, nations would disarm them and hold them in custody pending trial. Many would face execution in broad daylight. ALSO READ: Nduhungirehe: Rwanda ‘disappointed by biased US mediation’ in DR Congo crisis What explains why an outcome unthinkable in Europe became possible in Zaire, now DR Congo? Both cases involve the same crime, yet they produced different responses. The answer lies in the stark contrast between how Western nations perceive the Kinshasa-backed FDLR genocidal militia and how they perceive the Nazis. This difference in perception helps explain why FDLR has survived for so long. ALSO READ: Following the money: Inside FDLR's war economy and the networks that sustained it The West views German Nazis as the perpetrators of the Holocaust and the instigators of World War II, responsible for the genocide of more than six million Jews. In Western political discourse, the term “Nazi” has become synonymous with the ultimate embodiment of evil, racism, and tyranny. The same judgment should apply to FDLR. ALSO READ: When sanctions become strategy: The limits of economic pressure in eastern DR Congo On paper, Western nations classify FDLR as a genocidal militia and a serious terrorist threat, comparable to groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or the Nazis. On the ground, however, they have treated FDLR as an ally. Their failure to pursue the group with the same determination and intensity used against Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or the Nazis reveals this contradiction. ALSO READ: Rwanda’s impossible choice Before reorganizing into FDLR, the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda fled into Zaire under the protection of the French-led Operation Turquoise. In response, prominent African statesmen, including Nelson Mandela and Julius Nyerere, called for their immediate disarmament and relocation away from the Rwandan border. Etienne Tshisekedi, father of the current Congolese president, advocated the same policy. Even Mobutu’s own Prime Minister, Kengo wa Dondo, resisted the idea. However, Mobutu pressured him by revealing that their allies wanted the operation to proceed. Rather than heed the warnings of these African leaders, Western powers chose to support Operation Turquoise, a mission that shielded FDLR’s predecessors and allowed them to regroup and pursue further attempts to exterminate the Tutsi. This decision established a pattern that has protected the group ever since. I must remind readers that the campaign against the Tutsi began in the West. In 1902, the French priest Alphonse Brard wrote: “the Batutsi no longer had a future, since the arrival of Europeans would destroy their power everywhere.” This statement reveals what I argue was a coordinated effort to dismantle Tutsi influence across the region. In 1899, Richard Kandt described Rwanda as “a country full of promise once the power of the Watutsi (Tutsi) was destroyed.” These declarations laid the foundation for what became a systematic colonial agenda against the Tutsi, later continued under the Belgian colonial administration. What drove this hostility toward the Tutsi? Kandt himself provided the answer: “destroying Watutsi power” was presented as the only path to prosperity in Rwanda, and, as Brard extended the argument, across the wider region. In 1907, Kandt was rewarded with his appointment as the first Resident Governor of Rwanda, tasked with implementing the very doctrine he had promoted. Fueled by decades of anti-Tutsi propaganda, the so-called 1959 Hutu Revolution launched a sustained campaign of persecution against the Tutsi. That campaign reached its darkest point in 1994 and was halted only by the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA), which was composed largely of survivors and descendants of those who had endured the persecution that began in 1959. Before moving to Part II, one point deserves emphasis: the collapse of the genocidal regime in Rwanda dismantled the anti-Tutsi ideology that I argue had first been established under the influence of German colonial administrator Richard Kandt. The ideology’s strongest defenders will never accept this reality; instead, they are doing everything in their power to preserve it through FDLR. The writer is a media specialist, historian, and playwright.

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How historical anti-Tutsi ideology continues to shield FDLR - Part I